Mets Rumors: Sanchez, Gibbons, Alderson

Sandy Alderson will be officially introduced as the Mets' new general manager on Friday afternoon, according to a team press release. The new GM is already making calls to set up his front office; Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports that Alderson has reached out to Paul DePodesta and J.P. Ricciardi to strengthen the Mets staff. Both worked under Alderson in Oakland and went on to become MLB GMs. Here are the rest of the updates on the Mets:

The Mets and agent Arn Tellem, who represents Hisanori Takahashi, have received permission from MLB and the MLBPA to push back the deadline for signing Takahashi, probably for about a week, according to David Waldstein of the New York Times. Adam Rubin reported earlier today that the sides were considering extending the deadline.

Royals bench coach John Gibbons will not interview for the Mets' managerial opening, according to Andy Martino of the New York Daily News (on Twitter). Phillies bench coach Pete Mackanin could become a candidate, according to Martino.

Alderson "almost certainly will hire a low-profile manager … whose main focus will be to carry out the vision of the new general manager without drama," according to Sherman.

Gibbons, Clint Hurdle, DeMarlo Hale, Bob Melvin, Terry Collins, Don Wakamatsu and Chip Hale are candidates to manager the Mets, according to Dan Martin and Joel Sherman of the Post. Joe Torre, Wally Backman and Bobby Valentine are longshots to manage the team.

Friends of Alderson say he will look for an experienced manager, according to Sherman.

A's special advisor Grady Fuson, who worked with Alderson in Oakland and San Diego, told Martin that Alderson will be prepared at all times. "He'll read every game report from the minors every night. He’ll know every prospect by name, height and birthday," Fuson said. "He’ll know the top 50 guys in the draft. He’ll have his hands on everything and won’t be blindsided by anything.”

This is obviously sarcasm, but as long as Ricciardi isn’t writing checks and isn’t the GM, it won’t hurt. I trust Alderson’s perspective. DePodesta would be an even greater addition. The Mets are transitioning from a front office that ignored sabermetrics to a front office that should use them full blown. That’s awesome.

Agreed. Ricciardi may not have been a good GM but he was good at a lot of other things; that’s why he was hired as a GM in the first place. It seems that Alderson will be putting him in a position where he’ll excel. He knows Ricciardi’s strengths.

If Alderson is always so prepared, why is it the Padres drafted such horrible draft classes under his direction? This guy doesn’t have a strong eye for talent anymore. It’s straight downhill from here for the Mets. Get ready for a roster of cement-footed ‘sluggers’ and pitchers who rarely reach 90 on the gun.

The drafts were not “under his direction.” He was the CEO, not the GM or the Head of Scouting. You can blame him for not hiring the right people to conduct those drafts, but you can’t blame him for the draft picks themselves. With rare exceptions, owners and presidents don’t micro-manage the decisions of what are basically middle-managers. If anything, I would say that Alderson is exactly the kind of businessman smart enough to learn from past mistakes, and he will be far more involved in the drafts with the Mets than he ever was with the Padres.

Everything I read during his Padres tenure suggested exactly the opposite. He micro-managed everything and everyone. The organization was dysfunctional because there were to many different people to report to depending on what one was working on.
Also, he did hire his people. Grady Fuson was the director of scouting while Sandy was in San Diego, and Sandy hired him away from the A’s. Sandy also brought in DePodesta as the Assistant GM – and oddly enough, there were several reports that Towers reported to DePo (his assistant) when it came to getting approval for trades.
I personally believe Alderson and his people have seen the game pass them by when it comes to evaluating talent. I guess we’ll see who is correct.

I admit I don’t follow the Padres on a day-to-day basis. If that’s true, then that’s a wacky way of running an organization. It’s definitely true Towers and DePodesta didn’t always see eye-to-eye, and it’s easy to see how Alderson may have taken a shine to a fellow Harvard alumni. I agree the game may have past him by; it’s been a long time since Sandy GM’d a team, but it’s easy to get excited about him taking over the Mets, giving his background.

Besides the obvious manager hiring first and foremost, I hope plan B is to start focusing on a strong leaders to run their minor leagues which is the biggest problem with Omar I had. I thought he did a pretty good job on the major league club and for every Heath Bell there was an RA Dickey but I think the condition of the minor leagues is their biggest weakness and problem. They cannot keep up with the likes of the Red Sox, Yankees or Phillies if they don’t have the chips to make trades without giving away the farm [system]. I’ve heard good things about Rick Hahn [Chicago] and Logan White [Dodgers]. Good job so far Wilpon’s don’t stop now…

“Alderson will be prepared at all times. He’ll read every game report from the minors every night. He’ll know every prospect by name, height and birthday,” Fuson said. “He’ll know the top 50 guys in the draft.”

Sounds like he *might* be a candidate to take over the opening in my keeper league.

I, too, think it unfair to blame Alderson for the Oakland steroid abusers.That being said you are correct about the Mets making moves solely to placate their fanbase. The hardest thing to do is to ignore your fans and stick with a plan you think will work. The Mets often seem to test the waters by letting out some rumors and then pick the guy the fans want.The fans like Alderson, but I hope that’s not the reason he got the job. He has a lot of problems to solve and will have to be very skilled and 100% ownership backed to get them done before the fans grow impatient.

So your idea of a baseball move is to put a guy who has fielded 4 sub .500 teams, 1 .500 team, and 1 incredibly lucky playoff team whose pitching saved them in charge of one of the most widely mocked and underperforming teams in the league?

If the Mets made moves solely to appease the fanbase then we’d be winners by now. Omar would have been fired two seasons ago. Jerry would have been fired last season. Ollie, Maine, and Castillo would have been released by now etc.

Where did I blame Alderson solely for steroids in baseball? I said the team he created and is most often credited for was a menagerie of steroid abusers. I don’t think Alderson told them to take them just as much as I don’t think he told them to stop.

But the fact is, those teams were severely performance enhanced.

In this new age of baseball a GM has to be more creative than bringing in muscle to hit the ball out of the park.

That’s why I’d go with Byrnes who got shafted in AZ. He was building a team based on speed, power, defense and pitching and had a host of young players who surprised some people.

Alderson did nothing of note in his tenure in SD and his tenure in Oakland was aided by juiced up goons who posed for posters in cut up t-shirts flexing their drug aided muscles.

Is that Alderson’s fault solely? No. But those guys did it on his watch and there’s no doubt he turned the same blind eye to it that the Commish turned all those years.

As for saying Wright and Reyes don’t know how to win, I’m not alone as a Met fan thinking that. The team is polluted with “characters” not with character. Once they change that in the clubhouse, the team may start to win again. As a long time Met fan I’m quite disgusted with what has gone on here for this long.

Alderson is a step in the right direction, but I would have loved to see the Mets take an unpopular step rather than the press endorsed step they have chosen.

That’s a lot of assumption to say that the Mets would be winners by firing people earlier. You can’t fire your way to a championship.

If replaced earlier, no one knows who would’ve replaced either Manuel or Minaya or what the result of the hypothetical replacements would be. You have just grown to hate those two to the point where you believe that any pair would’ve done more for the team.

To give a real-world Met example, Met fans grew to hate Willie Randolph and call for his firing. Who replaced him? Jerry Manuel.

Agreed. If Jeff Wilpon tries to meddle I could see Alderson walking away from the job just like Neil Smith did from the Islanders years ago when he was named GM and quit in the first month because of meddling from the owner and Garth Snow.